


A Silver Tongue in the Desert

by orphan_account



Series: Fill the Void [15]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Bandits & Outlaws, Gen, Minor Violence, red dead redemption au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23360341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Trevor Collins liked to think himself a refined man. A refined man with exquisite tastes that were often out of his financial means. So maybe he forged a few documents. Said a few tall tales.But he did not think it meant he was on par with murderers and what have you. So what was he going to do now that he was locked in a cage full of them?
Series: Fill the Void [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663750
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	A Silver Tongue in the Desert

For Trevor, there was nothing worse than riding in a cage with five other gentlemen accused of all manner of unholy things. The man across of him was wanted for theft. The man to his left was for assault. At the very back next to the cage doors was a man accused of buggery. Buggery of what Trevor didn’t want to know. All he knew was that he did not deserve to be here with men of this ilk. His crimes were simple. And really to call them crimes was a crime in itself. All he did was forge a little. Match a signature that wasn’t his to give. Rewrite a note with a few details changed. Persuade a lady to sign a document that would claim a considerable sum for Trevor’s own pockets rather than a company she was attempting to invest in.

All things simple. It wasn’t like he _murdered_ anyone, no. Grifting, in his opinion, was a lesser crime. And Trevor did not deserve to be locked up next to a man who smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a week, being transported in a cage like an animal that would take him to a boat with would take him to a prison on an island. No more fine suits. No more wine imported from France. Just sweating it out in a brick box with twenty other— _ugh—_ men. Needless to say, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

The wagon came to a stop. A train was rushing past the tracks, holding up their voyage to the nearest port in Van Horn. The sound created a fine noise to drone out the men’s conversations and the guards constant nattering of ‘shut up’.

Once the train had passed, the wagon did not lurch forward as Trevor expected. In fact, it was the driver’s call of ‘get off the road’ that alerted him. He turned his head to the side and spotted a few others on horseback on the other side of the track. They were all armed. Heavily so.

“Now, I’d thank you kindly for getting down off your perch there and leaving us to our business.”

“Sirs, if you do not back down—“ said the guard.

“You dumb or something, fella? There’s— _one, two three—_ six of us and two of you. Now, I ain’t too good at them maths, but I figured six is more than two.”

“The man does have two hands. He can count,” said another.

Before another word could get out, several shots were fired, raining down on the two guards and showering Trevor and the other poor men in a spray of blood. He threw up his hands to cover his head and pray that he would be spared for whatever this was supposed to be. A robbery? He would laugh at the thought if he were not in so much danger.

The riders came up to the cage and made quick work of the lock. As the men jump out and flee, one of the riders was quick to warn them: “No word outta any a’ you, ya hear?” Until only Trevor was left in the cage.

One of the riders, a red headed woman, came up to the back of the cage and dismounted. “You Trevor Collins, sir?”

“Who might be asking if I were to say I was?” he asked.

“Well, I’m Jack and that’s Geoff and Jeremy and Michael and Ryan and Gavin.”

“And you say that as if I am supposed to know who you are.”

“We are the Fakes, sir, and if we are to remain as such we require a grifter. And we hear you is supposed to be the best.”

“And if I am not Trevor Collins?” He had heard of the Fakes. They were a terror along the eastern seaboard. Trains, carriages, banks. All of it was fair game for them. What they were doing in West Elizabeth was beyond him. And what they needed of a grifter was too, but he was much too in the business of self-preservation to hand himself over that easily.

“Then perhaps you might be a Trevor Forbeck. A Trevor Owens. A Trevor Ewing.”

How this woman knew of his prior aliases, Trevor did not know, but it spooked him none the less.

He slid down along the bench further to the open gates of the cage. “And if I were this man,” he said. “What would be in it for him, I might ask?”

“Why, a mighty big adventure across the state border,” one of the men said, one that sported a rather vigorous mustache.

“You running from something, ma’am?” he asked, looking back at Jack. He knew the Fakes were large, but they were also _at large._ The last he’d heard before being taken away in irons was that the bounty for any number of them was in the thousands. But Trevor wasn’t a man’s man. Not in the bounty hunting sense where he’d be on a horse for days on end, following after clues like he was a sleuth. Trevor was a man of civilization. And even if the pomade in his hair no longer held its position, he would still consider himself as such.

“Even God’s in on the take, I reckon,” said one of them.

“You’d be a fool not to,” another said. “What kind of man would pass up on five thousand dollars? You could live like a king on that now.”

“We’re trying to make new lives for ourselves in New Austin,” Jack said. “Perhaps go down into Mexico and start something there.”

“And you need me,” he said.

“We need papers and you is the best chance we have of getting there unnoticed. And we are prepared to pay. Handsomely.”

There was something about her smile that was throwing Trevor off a bit. Sweet but not too sweet. Cunning but not too cutthroat. It was in interesting mix that intrigued Trevor a bit.

So Trevor chanced it. He jumped out the back of the wagon and landed in the dirt. “And if I were to say no?” he asked.

“Then we’d let you go same as all them others,” she said. “But a face like yours going missing like this. Sure to grace many a’ posters in the area, don’t you think?”

He did think. Very much so.

It had seemed as if he’d run out of luck this time around. No more dodging and dithering. What more could he heap on his head other than riding with a gang wanted for murder, theft, and a host of other things? At least they were suitably dressed.

“Ma’am, I will take you up on your fine offer,” he said.

“Of course you do,” she said, mounting up on her mountain of a horse and extending her hand. “Now up you get, Mr. Collins. We’ve got a lot of miles to make and not a lot of time to make them in.”

He took up her hand and was pulled up behind her. Gone would be the days of electricity and evening wear for a life of dirt and grit. But so long as he wasn’t in a brick box, working away in the fields on Sisika Penitentiary then by all means, he was prepared to sacrifice it all.

Too bad he didn’t know what that sacrifice would mean for him in the long run.


End file.
